Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-12-17
GONE UP SALT CREEK.

The Health Committee has assumed the
onus OF all the aspersions the Inter Noun
tain has been casting on the water now in
use in the city. They have come out in
statement sweeping enough to shoulder the
responsibility for the injury to this city
which such assertions inevitably infiict,
whether true or false. They refer openly
and without equivoeation to body OF
water they call Grove Gulch water, con.
tanning q series OF impurities which they
detail with painful minuteness. "They be-
lieve" that this water, 80 impregnated with
impurities, forms "a portion OF the seepage
water under that part OF the valley in
which the graveyard is situated The
condition OF things stated has existed ten
years. In that time the impurities have
done their worst. If they haven't, it is
high time for them to get move' on
them, for it is evident the Health Commit
tee place great confidence in their ability to
create as bad stink in Butte as they do
on their native heath in or near the vicin-
ity of Grove Gulch, where they riot
in all their native freedom. The
committee have drawn a truly frightful
picture of the dangers to which this COM
munity is exposed, and now let us see what
it is all about. With a candor that is ad-
mirable in gentlemen the victims OF such q
dreadful nightmare, they make an import
ant admission in their statement which Is
the saving clause that rObs their fulmlna-
ton of much OF it's thunder. They admit
that the "body OF water" which first makes
it's appearance about the milk ranch and
afterwards meanders in an insavory journey
through all manner OF corruption, "slnks
Altogether from sight" somewhere about a
mile from the waterworks. That's all they
know about it. They don't say OF their
own knowledge that it makes directly Tor
the water-works with the malicious inten
ton of laying out the entire population OF
Butte with typhoid or some other deadly
disease. They couldn't say that because
the ''body OF water when it first
concluded to drop out OF sight ten
years ago could have had no intuition
that the water works would be some day
placed where they are. But the Health
Committee "believe' that the "body OF
water" they have graciously indicated
forms "a portion OF the seepage water
under that part OF the valley in which the
graveyard is situated, "-and there is no
health in u.s." as the Litany puts it.
And yet, unfortunately, although Sir
Oracle hath spoken, we venture to suggest
that Grove Gulch water must 60 astray IN
eome unaccountable manner when it ''slnks
altogether from sight" OF course, the
Health Committee can't be wrong. 1t
couldn't be, considering the concentrated
essence OF wisdom OF which it ID composed
that can call an enclosed conduit n trench.
They have solemnly expressed their 'bellei
upon the subject Of Grove Gulch water
and when that body of nauseating huld
realizes what the Health Committee ex-
meet OF it, it will hump itself for all it is
worth. 1t has been for ten years meander'
ing somewhere in an utterly aimless way
whilo for the past two years some sixty or
seventy people at boarding houses twice as
close to the gravey ard as the pump'house
is, have been drinking water from wells
ten feet deep with relish, and the most ben
eficial results, coupled with an entire ab-
sence of typhoidal or other diseases.
Grove Gulch water has gone strangely
amiss. In sinking altogether from s'gnt IL
has evidently gone ~ Salt Creek, whlther
tie Health Committee are recommended
to follow it.